Guidelines in Supporting People with Intellectual Disabilities.It’s all About Values

Abstract

In a person-centered support system for people with intellectual disabilities, there should be an alignment between the wishes and goals of a person, his or her support needs, the support given, and his or her quality of life as outcome. Thus far, quite some research has been done on measuring support needs and measuring personal outcomes. In this article the focus is on the actual support to people with intellectual disabilities. It is argued that there should be an emphasis on 1) the application of evidence-based supports, 2) based on evidence-based measurement of support needs, 3) in which the outcomes are evidence-based assessed quality of life-related personal outcomes, 4) within a value-based framework, and 5) in a process of methodological sound Individual Supports Planning. A value-based model for evidence-based supports and interventions in a support methodology is presented.

Supporting direct support professionals in enabling people with intellectual disabilities to engage in meaningful activities: protocol for the Meaningful Activities 4 All (MA4A) study based on the human-centred design process

“…In recent years the personal goals, needs and wishes of PID became increasingly important in enabling MA 12 35 36. It is globally accepted that in a person-centred support system, there should be an alignment between the wishes and goals of a person, his or her support needs, the support given and his or her QOL outcome,36 yet not all PID are able to explicitly communicate their goals 13 35. Too often PID are dependent on DSPs’ abilities to communicate at their level and understand them.…”